The Effects Of Prenatal Testosterone On Adult Wages: Evidence From Russian Rlms Data And Measured 2d:4d Digit Ratios

John Nye, Maria Yudkevich, Ekaterina Orel () and Ekaterina Kochergina

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: There is now a large literature on the correlates of prenatal androgen exposure and various individual measures of performance in sports, business, or schooling. However, there is still relatively limited evidence of the impact of prenatal androgens on life achievement. Using data from the Russian longitudinal survey and measured digit ratios, we found that age-corrected market wages are nonlinearly correlated with low measured 2D:4D ratios signifying higher prenatal testosterone. Unlike earlier work on noncognitive correlates of labor market wages, our findings indicate a clear-cut optimum 2D:4D ratio for women’s wages with higher and lower 2D:4D being associated with lowered wages. However, the size of these effects is small, especially compared to the influence of education on income.

Keywords: Adult wages; Prenatal Testosterone; Female earnings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-hea and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in WP BRP Series: Economics / EC, November 2014, pages 1-21

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